We used this image because it shows you what’s inside of the hull, but you don’t want to miss the thing motoring around an above-ground swimming pool in the clip after the break. The hollowed out shell is quite buoyant and has no problem staying afloat and upright with the addition of a propeller. The parts from a remote control airplane kit have been mounted on a wooden scaffold. This provides plenty of thrust with a servo motor moving turning the prop for directional control. There is no dagger board so the craft is a bit slow to respond to turns. But how responsive do you expect a floating melon to be?

35 thoughts on “Watermelon air boat”

And more ballast at the lowest point.
That could be solved by switching the expensive li-poly battery pack out with a cheaper ni-mh pack with same capacity.
Since there’s still plenty of space in the bottom of it, judging from the pictures.

I curious about the propeller motor, controller, and battery pack — anyone here familiar with electric RC plane stuff? It seems like the motor is using a lot of power … what are the chances that this LiPo battery is usable for more than a few charge cycles?

I expected to see a zepelin like thing made from a watermellon….oh well.
Nice idea,also when you think that you can actually shape a watermelon by confining it in a small space (box watermelons anyone?) it gets intriguing.
I am wondering how long it will take to rot/decompose?